stands beside צו צו, and designates the mass of rules, ordinances, and statutes. This is characteristic of the Egyptians, and likewise of the Ethiopians, who bear so close an intellectual resemblance to them. With regard to the connection of the verse with what precedes, _Gesenius_ remarks: "The consequence of such great deeds of Jehovah will be, that the distant, powerful people of the Ethiopians shall present pious offerings to Jehovah,"--more correctly, "present themselves and their possessions to Jehovah."--A prelude to the fulfilment Isaiah beheld with his own eyes. It is said in 2 Chron. xxxii. 33: "And many (in consequence of the manifestation of the glory of God in the defeat of Asshur before Jerusalem) brought gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem." Yet, we must not limit ourselves to that. The real fulfilment can be sought for only at a later time, as certainly as that which the Prophet announces about the destruction of the world's power exceeds, by far, that isolated defeat of Asshur, which can be regarded as a prelude only to the real fulfilment; and as certainly as he announces the destruction of Asshur generally, and, under his image, of the world's power. "He who delights in having pointed out the fulfilment of such prophecies in the later history"--_Gesenius_ remarks--"may find it in Acts viii. 26 ff., and still more, in the circumstance that Abyssinia is, up to this day, the only larger Christian State of the East."--In consequence of the glorious manifestation of the Lord in His kingdom, and of the conquering power which, in Christ, He displayed in His relation to the world's power, there once existed in Ethiopia a flourishing Christian Church; and on the ground of this passage before us, we look at its ruins which have been left up to this day, with the hope that the Lord will, at some future time, rebuild it. [Pg 141] CHAPTER XIX.